Winter is the season of sweet and brawny barley wines, pitch-black imperial stouts, and monk-made Belgian ales with high alcohol content—all the better for splitting a bottle with family and friends. While these strong beers are ideal après-ski and -sledding warm-me-ups, they truly excel when paired with foods both savory and sweet.

Chocolaty imperial stouts are equally at home with hearty entrées and indulgent desserts. Caramelly barley wines are a perfect match for sweet holiday pie but also assertive enough to tame a pungent blue cheese. And craft beer even has a sparkling, celebratory alternative to wine with bière de Champagne, which follows the same protocol used in Champagne production. The effervescent elixir is a tremendous companion to salads, or just popped open and enjoyed when the clock ticks to midnight on December 31.

Here are five of our favorite beers to help us survive, and thrive, this winter, with delicious recipes for pairing.

Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine Style Ale, California

(About $12 for a six-pack of 12-ounce bottles)
5.4 percent ABV

A barley wine, despite its name, does not contain grapes. In fact, the beer style has few similarities with wine save for elevated alcohol content, which might explain why the strong and warming ale has become one of wintertime's signature sips. Sierra Nevada's classic Bigfoot brings a flavor as big and bold as its namesake with an appealing fruitiness and bitter edge that can stand up to blue cheese or play nice with a nutty pie.

Phyllo-Wrapped Figs with Prosciutto and Stilton
Pungent Stilton handily overwhelms most brews, but not Bigfoot, which has enough hefty caramel complexity to match the cheese and figs, while the alcohol helps neutralize the fatty prosciutto.

Brasserie de Rochefort Trappistes Rochefort 10, Belgium

(About $7 for an 11.2-ounce bottle)
11.3 percent ABV

In Belgium, Trappist monks have long brewed dark and brawny ales that are collectively known as Quadrupels (or just Quads), packed with flavors of cherries and raisins and enough alcohol to combat a cold snap. This abbey's creamy, potent Quadrupel pours leather-brown with ruby highlights and tastes of caramel, molasses, and figs. It's divine with fruit-based desserts, lamb, or game.

Sweet Recipe Pairing:

Savory Recipe Pairing:

A Fruitcake to Love
Studded with dates, figs, orange peel, and walnut liqueur, this fruitcake might as well be Rochefort 10's long-lost fraternal twin. The beer could not be more compatible with this dessert.

Grilled Marinated Leg of Lamb
Lamb's gaminess can often overpower lighter beers. The Quad can stand up to the intense flavors, with the sweetness and caramel notes working well with grilled lamb's char.

Stone Brewing Co. Imperial Russian Stout, California

(About $7 for an 22-ounce bottle)
10.6 percent ABV

The midnight-dark, dizzyingly strong stout has its roots in the 18th century when the Russian royal court requested that brewers craft them the finest ale, with best equated with strongest. The imperial stout, as it was later known, is a particular favorite of American brewers such as San Diego's Stone. Their inky rendition is Rockefeller-rich, loaded with flavors of coffee, anise, and cocoa, making it sing with brownies and fudgy cakes, as well as goose, duck, steak, and cream sauces.

Originally developed by German monks for consumption during Lent, the strong and malt-sweet lager (nickname: "liquid bread") is an ideal wintertime indulgence. Silky, mocha-brown Celebrator proudly flaunts flavors of cocoa, dark fruit, and brown sugar, making it a fine friend to rich roasted pork or perhaps duck, as well as chocolaty desserts.

Sweet Recipe Pairing:

Savory Recipe Pairing:

Deconstructed Black Forest Cake
Pair the iconic German beer with this modern riff on the seminal Bavarian dessert, which echoes the creamy Celebrator's flavors of chocolate and cherries. The dry finish leaves you springing for another forkful of cake.

Brouwerij Bosteels DeuS Brut des Flandres, Belgium

(About $30 for a 750 ml bottle)
11.5 percent ABV

One of brewing's buzziest new beer styles is bière de Champagne, which is produced according to traditional Champagne techniques. Brouwerij Bosteels' trailblazing DeuS (pronounced "DAY-ews") is fermented in Belgium but finished in France's Champagne region, resulting in a dry, prickly beauty that's sublime with shellfish, citrus, and salads, or as a New Year's Eve sparkler. (Since Belgian brewers are not allowed to use the term bière de Champagne, they refer to these beers as bière brut.)

Prices and availability subject to change.

Joshua M. Bernstein has written for numerous magazines, newspapers, and websites, including The New York Times, Gourmet.com,Forbes Traveler, New York magazine, and Time Out New York. He wrote a weekly food-and-drink column for the New York Press for seven years and is a beer features writer forImbibe. He is the author of The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp for Beer Geeks: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes and Brewed Awakening: Behind the Beers and Brewers Leading the World's Craft Brewing Revolution and lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he leads homebrew tours and drinks plenty of beer. You can find him atJoshuaMBernstein.com.